The Book of the Unknown: Tales of the Thirty-six by Jonathon Keats Page B
Authors: Jonathon Keats
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their superhuman feats in the uniform of the hosting battalion. All except for Heyh: She was pinned with the insignia of the opposing military.
Since the big-city calamity, she’d also been assigned a new role. No longer trusted on trapeze or tightrope, she was assigned to replace Glukel as Iser’s human target.
She was awful at it. Unlike sweet Glukel, she couldn’t keep still. Each time Iser hurled a knife, her whole body would convulse. With folks focused on her torment, Iser couldn’t show off his talent. More to the point, the act was propagandistically ambiguous: Soldiers were made to feel sympathy for the enemy, while officers wondered why Iser, dressed like them, wasn’t able to slaughter his victim.
So the shtick was nixed. Iser added daggers to his juggling gig. And Heyh? Useless for performance, she was left to clean up after the troupe.
Every night, they played for a different audience, always to a packed house. While they didn’t earn the money they had in their own country, they were as popular as entertainers can be only in a state of war. Eventually, after several weeks of success, they got an invitation to play for the monarch.
Of course, His mute Majesty hadn’t made the overture. The idea had come from one of his most senior advisers, formerly courtier to the king’s father, who recalled that the future sovereign had been amused by acrobatics as an infant. Medically speaking, that kind of psychological twaddle lacked the reputation of a good leeching, but no authority is as strong as desperation, and, if the fighting went on much longer, there’d be no country for the ailing king to cure. A tent was propped. Ropes were tied. Shimmel rode in, standing on a horse. The show began.
The performance was spectacular that afternoon. Since the king stood on the side of neither army, commanding everybody and nobody, the troupe performed in sleek red costumes formerly used as undergarments by the disbanded palace guard. Iser juggled fire on the trapeze while Hinde and Hodel performed gymnastic somersaults on the high wire. Even the most dour advisers were enraptured, standing on their feet to see Koppel lie down on his bed of flame, and Fishke vanish him in a quilt of fire. Who could be bothered to look after the king, slumped on his throne, hands held over his ears, eyes shut, head dropped? Who was there to notice his despair?
He’d been a handsome man before the war, a natural athlete who wore his crown as lightly as a hero’s laurels. Most folks had assumed that he ruled with equivalent ease, as if an unerring instinct for justice were the fulcrum of his balance, the origin of his poise. Having never seen him in his private rooms, brooding on the effects of his decisions, his subjects couldn’t have fathomed what their confidence cost him in doubt. He’d taken all the blame, as if the world were his consequence. After the quake, shaken silent, he’d set aside all the old regalia. The throne he preferred was a wooden chair. His advisers, wary of adverse publicity, kept him close and enjoyed his luxuries on his behalf: the rich foods, the fancy dress, and, on this particular afternoon, the circus.
Teyvel swallowed his last sword. Schprintze disentangled herself from Hodel and Hinde, who were holding her while she juggled with Iser. Shimmel took a final gallop around the ring, bringing the show to a rousing close. A standing ovation. A royal reception. All the king’s men joined the troupe in a toast. As the liquor flowed, the festivities spilled out of the tent.
Quietly, Heyh emerged from a box in the corner, dragging a tattered broom behind her. She wore pieces of the different uniforms, given to her when she still had a place on the stage as Iser’s human target, a pied patchwork salvaged from the last scraps of her ruptured career. She started to sweep up horse manure—and slipped in it. As she righted herself, she thought she heard a familiar sound. A laugh.
She looked up. The room was
Since the big-city calamity, she’d also been assigned a new role. No longer trusted on trapeze or tightrope, she was assigned to replace Glukel as Iser’s human target.
She was awful at it. Unlike sweet Glukel, she couldn’t keep still. Each time Iser hurled a knife, her whole body would convulse. With folks focused on her torment, Iser couldn’t show off his talent. More to the point, the act was propagandistically ambiguous: Soldiers were made to feel sympathy for the enemy, while officers wondered why Iser, dressed like them, wasn’t able to slaughter his victim.
So the shtick was nixed. Iser added daggers to his juggling gig. And Heyh? Useless for performance, she was left to clean up after the troupe.
Every night, they played for a different audience, always to a packed house. While they didn’t earn the money they had in their own country, they were as popular as entertainers can be only in a state of war. Eventually, after several weeks of success, they got an invitation to play for the monarch.
Of course, His mute Majesty hadn’t made the overture. The idea had come from one of his most senior advisers, formerly courtier to the king’s father, who recalled that the future sovereign had been amused by acrobatics as an infant. Medically speaking, that kind of psychological twaddle lacked the reputation of a good leeching, but no authority is as strong as desperation, and, if the fighting went on much longer, there’d be no country for the ailing king to cure. A tent was propped. Ropes were tied. Shimmel rode in, standing on a horse. The show began.
The performance was spectacular that afternoon. Since the king stood on the side of neither army, commanding everybody and nobody, the troupe performed in sleek red costumes formerly used as undergarments by the disbanded palace guard. Iser juggled fire on the trapeze while Hinde and Hodel performed gymnastic somersaults on the high wire. Even the most dour advisers were enraptured, standing on their feet to see Koppel lie down on his bed of flame, and Fishke vanish him in a quilt of fire. Who could be bothered to look after the king, slumped on his throne, hands held over his ears, eyes shut, head dropped? Who was there to notice his despair?
He’d been a handsome man before the war, a natural athlete who wore his crown as lightly as a hero’s laurels. Most folks had assumed that he ruled with equivalent ease, as if an unerring instinct for justice were the fulcrum of his balance, the origin of his poise. Having never seen him in his private rooms, brooding on the effects of his decisions, his subjects couldn’t have fathomed what their confidence cost him in doubt. He’d taken all the blame, as if the world were his consequence. After the quake, shaken silent, he’d set aside all the old regalia. The throne he preferred was a wooden chair. His advisers, wary of adverse publicity, kept him close and enjoyed his luxuries on his behalf: the rich foods, the fancy dress, and, on this particular afternoon, the circus.
Teyvel swallowed his last sword. Schprintze disentangled herself from Hodel and Hinde, who were holding her while she juggled with Iser. Shimmel took a final gallop around the ring, bringing the show to a rousing close. A standing ovation. A royal reception. All the king’s men joined the troupe in a toast. As the liquor flowed, the festivities spilled out of the tent.
Quietly, Heyh emerged from a box in the corner, dragging a tattered broom behind her. She wore pieces of the different uniforms, given to her when she still had a place on the stage as Iser’s human target, a pied patchwork salvaged from the last scraps of her ruptured career. She started to sweep up horse manure—and slipped in it. As she righted herself, she thought she heard a familiar sound. A laugh.
She looked up. The room was
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